


Love Among the Stars

by AraSigyrn



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Jedi!Nicky, M/M, Mandalorian Wars!AU, Mandalorian!Joe, Old Republic!AU, When two hyperfixations collide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27135040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraSigyrn/pseuds/AraSigyrn
Summary: This is what happens when a new fandom sandbags me during another hyperfixation.Joe & Nicky meet on opposite sides of the Mandalorian/Jedi wars.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 41
Kudos: 199





	Love Among the Stars

Nicolò is found in a small city on a lush but distant planet in the Outer Rim when he is a baby. The Jedi who find him are the explorers and wayfarers and they are clever in their words. Nicolò's father is a good man, his mother chief of their little community and they have seven children already. It takes only a few days for the Jedi to convince them that their son belongs to the Galaxy rather than his kin and that the Force wills his departure.

Nicolò's earliest memories are of the corridors and cabins of the _Valorous Intent_. His Master, Candesh Radela, is a Togrutan woman in the waning years of her life. She has served on the Jedi Council and Distruk, the only other Jedi on board, was her fourth Padawan. Master Radela had intended that Distruk be her last Padawan but the Jedi Temple on Coruscant is months away by the hyperspace technologies of the day. She starts to teach Nicolò only the basics but he is a sweet child, eager to please. Only his dreams, jumbles of images and violence, suggest anything is out of the norm.

He is ten standard cycles in age when the _Valorous Intent_ returns to Coruscant. Master Radela is declining but she brings her past and present Padawans before the Council. There are some concerns and Nicolò is obliged to join the younglings for one standard cycle. He is a dutiful student and his teachers commend him to the Council as being naturally attuned to the Living Force.

When Nicolò is thirteen, Distruk formally accepts him as her Padawan learner. He is with her on Kashyyyk when the first reports of the Mandalorian threat start to reach the Jedi. Nicolò will earn his Knight's rank just three cycles later as the Republic calls the Jedi to war. 

Master Radela sees him only once more, the day after his Trials. She is too frail to join their fellow Jedi in war but Nicolò thinks that she shines more brightly than ever before.

"I am proud of you," she tells him. "You have all the makings of a great Jedi, Nicolò."

"Thank you, Master," Nicolò is proud.

"I am also afraid for you," Master Radela turns blind eyes towards him. "War is fertile ground for the Dark. Fear is the path to the Dark we warn the younglings of. Frustration is the one that Jedi fall to in times of war. There will come times, Nicolò, when you will see no path to victory that does not pass through the Dark."

"I will not," Nicolò says and Master Radela smiles.

"All things come with a price, my dearest boy. Remember always that the Dark lies and the price is always higher than you believe."

"I will remember," Nicolò promises and she smiles at him.

"War is a terrible thing," she tells him. "It behooves you as a Jedi to remember that a just war is one where inaction leaves the vulnerable to disaster. We are all children of the Force, my Nicolò, and we are all worthy of life and happiness."

Nicolò carries her words with him when he boards the ship that will take him to the edges of recently-conquered Mandalorian space.

* * *

Yusuf is born a proud son of the Kaysani clan. He grows to manhood and earns his armour under the indulgent eyes of his parents. He is a skilled warrior, a lively conversationalist and a poet with a knack for blasters. He chooses to study the vibro-blade and when the Mand'alor calls the clans to war and conquest, Yusuf is among the thousands who rally to the horned banners.

The Galactic Republic is a fat and decrepit regime that cannot muster strength to defend itself against the superior tactics of the sons of Mandalore. They only know how to retreat and the blades of Yusuf and his kin run in rainbows of blood.

Then the Jedi come.

Yusuf has heard stories of them. Half-witted mystics who preach meaningless prattle. The warriors of Mandalore laugh among themselves and rally to crush these fools. Yusuf jokes with some brothers from the far side of Mandalore as the Jedi ships descend through the atmosphere of the fetid little planet they are standing on. They brag of how many Jedi they will kill and one of the older warriors, Kagerre, bets Yusuf that she will have a Jedi's sabre for a trophy before the next nightfall. Yusuf laughs and takes that bet.

The Jedi prove harder to crush than Yusuf could have imagined.

Their swords turn aside the blaster bolts, they dance away from any attempt to swarm them and Yusuf sees them leap impossible heights to strike down his brothers when they try to scout with jetpacks. There are too few of these Jedi to stop the Mandalorian advance but every planet, every system is bought dearly with Mandalorian blood. Every battle with the Jedi devolves into savage close quarters fighting where both their witchery and the Mandalorian technology are negated.

It is on an acrid little world, mostly sand and far too close to its star, that Yusuf and his division run headlong into a regiment of Republican commandoes and their Jedi. There's no cover, no escape and the atmosphere carries a charge that destroys delicate circuitry, like nav-coms and communicators.

Ill-fortune puts Yusuf's ship down almost on top of the Republic scouts. The fighting is brutal and neither side shows mercy until they are both too exhausted. The fighting does not end so much as it trickles to a stop. Yusuf has lost almost half his brothers, the shine of Beskar all that distinguishes friend from foe among the fallen.

Most fell to the Jedi who wears no armour, carries no blaster and fights like a demon from the deepest Sith Hells. Yusuf marks him with his paler skin and sky-coloured eyes.

_I will kill you,_ he promises the other man and the Jedi lifts his head as if he heard that thought.

Yusuf deliberately thinks the most lewd things he can imagine. A long second passes then the Jedi turns back to his injured companion. Yusuf musters his forces and they retreat. The night is cold and the air stinks of rotten things. Yusuf stays awake for hours, trying to coax their communicators to life and failing.

Two days later, Yusuf keeps his promise.

They come on the Republic forces in a ravine. The Jedi is arguing with the officer but still he senses them. The ambush hits a wall of resistance. Yusuf bellows a war-cry that is less words and more raw emotion. The Jedi meets his charge and then there is nothing but the body in front of him, the spinning blade that sparks off his Beskar and the harsh breathing of the Jedi.

Yusuf manages to force a misstep, driving his blade into the exposed skin of the neck but before he can register his triumph, that damnable 'sabre drives up. Not into his breastplate which would have turned it aside. Into his side. They fall together and Yusuf's last vision is of blue-green eyes.

He dies.

He wakes again to the sound of a gasp that is not his.

The Jedi woke before him but Yusuf gets his blade into the other's back before he realizes Yusuf is there. He is hurled back, slamming into the ravine wall hard enough that he hears bone shatter before pain drowns his awareness.

The next time he wakes, Yusuf takes up a rock. The Jedi has his vibroblade. They kill each other again, gasping around their shared final breath.

The fourth time, the Jedi is awake before him again. Yusuf does not realize this at first. The other man is sitting with his knees drawn up and his face hidden in his folded arms. His 'sabre hangs loosely in his grip. Yusuf's vibroblade is half-buried in the sand nearby. The Jedi does not move when Yusuf ventures close enough to snatch it up. He hesitates. The desire to strike at his enemy wars with the Jedi's strange apathy. It is dishonourable to strike an opponent who is not fighting.

Yusuf had thought he was past such thoughts. Honour is a brittle thing on the battlefield. He lets his shadow fall on the Jedi. The Jedi does not move. Yusuf hisses through his teeth. The Jedi does not move. If he was not close enough to see the subtle movement of his breath, Yusuf would think him dead. He lifts his blade, still only half-hearted and at last the Jedi stirs.

"There's no point." HIs accent is strange. Not from the Core Worlds, Yusuf is sure but he doesn't recognize it.

"You will be dead," Yusuf says.

"Not for long," the Jedi says dully. "You've already killed me with that."

"I have not," Yusuf snaps. "If I had killed you, you would be dead!"

"I was," the Jedi lifts his head. "I felt it cut through my flesh, felt my heart stop..."

There is ruin in those expressive eyes and Yusuf is struck again by the thought that if they had met in peace, he would have courted the man. The shape of his face, his striking eyes and his grace in battle. His thoughts shape themselves into poetry the longer he looks so Yusuf looks away.

"You are a fool," he says gruffly, "or a madman. Either way, I will spare you this time. I will not be so merciful the next time we face each other in battle!"

The Jedi closes his eyes and the sound he makes is something between a laugh and a sob. "There's no point."

"Fool," Yusuf says more gently than before.

"I mean there is _no point_ ," the Jedi snarls back. "There's no-one left but us."

"You lie!"

"See for yourself," the Jedi invites him, waving a hand at the charnel house of the ravine.

"I will," Yusuf bites out. "And when I find my brothers, we will find you and this time, you will die."

The Jedi shakes his head, curling in on himself again. He makes no move to stop Yusuf from leaving. Yusuf still looks over his shoulder with every step. The Jedi does not move.

The Jedi does not lie either, Yusuf discovers. There are more battlefields, more bodies rotting in the sour heat of the planet but nothing more than small scurrying lizards lives. He finds Anar, Xuj and the rest of his clanbrothers around their ship, armour still scorched from the fuel explosions. Yusuf searches desperately for any sign of life, heedless of the danger. He dies twice, once from an explosion that seems to take a painful eternity to recover from and once from heatstroke and dehyrdration. His grief drives him to madness for a time.

He remembers the Jedi after several days when his grief has ebbed enough for him to feel his desperate loneliness. Yusuf has never been alone before; his family and his brothers were always within reach even when he did not actually call for them. The ships are destroyed, both the Mandalorian and the Republic ships beyond any hope of salvage. Yusuf might die again as his grief surges; he knows only that he comes awake in the dark with the vast greenish moons of this hell shining down on him and he remembers the Jedi.

Yusuf does not know which of his impulses drives him to seek the man. He is furiously angry and rage drowns out grief for a time. He is also echoingly lonely, desperate for some sign that he is still alive, not some lost spirit doomed to walk the sands of this hell for eternity. He finds the ravine where he left the Jedi collapsed in on itself and he falls to his knees, breath driven from his lungs by the shock.

It takes him two more days to find the Jedi. He realizes halfway through the second day that the Jedi must be following Yusuf's own footsteps. He keeps a hand on his blade, still not sure if he means to embrace the other man or kill him. He wonders what the Jedi intends. A darker part of his mind wonders if the Jedi is the one who did this to him.

He does not expect to find the Jedi among the dead. The Republic's dead lie in a pit, each of their bodies set to rights with their hands crossed over their chests. Yusuf does not see the Jedi until the last of the sunlight catches on Beskar armour as it is moved. Rage wins over fear and Yusuf pulls his blade from the sheath, moving across the sand as soft as a shadow.

"-am sorry," he hears that voice again, hoarse from the heat. "I do not know how this should be done."

The body, Anar's body, floats across the sand to land gently by the others. The Jedi limps after it and bends over the body. Yusuf thinks he is trying to steal the Beskar and his lips peel back from his teeth. Instead the Jedi takes Anar's blaster and fits it into his hands with care. He apologises when it slips loose as if Anar were alive to care. Yusuf hesitates, his deadly focus slipping enough that he can take in how Anar's body has been arranged among the corpses of his clan.

It is not a very good pyre but the Jedi must have seen it on some other world, after some other, equally pointless, battle. He manages to wedge the blaster in Anar's hand, ready for the trials on the path to Judgement and the life after. The Jedi steps back, rubs his hands over his eyes.

"I did not know you," he says. "We were at war. Still. I am sorry you are dead. I hope that there is peace for you, in the Force where no pain can find you."

He turns and startles to find Yusuf so close. His hand goes to the lightsabre clipped to his belt. For a moment, violence crackles through the air between them. Then Yusuf resheathes his blade and clears his throat.

"It should be," he has to swallow. "They should face the dawn."

The Jedi lowers his hand from his belt. He studies Yusuf for a long moment before he nods. They work together to shift the dead into their proper places and Yusuf fetches the unburnt fuel from the nearest ship while the Jedi fills in the trench of the Republic's dead with gestures that send the sand flowing like water. The Jedi stands by his side, hands loosely clasped before him, as the sun rises and Yusuf draws his blaster. He waits until the sun gleams on the angles of their helmets before he fires. The fuel ignites with a roar and Yusuf holsters his blaster before he weeps.

He does not expect the hand that comes to rest tentatively on his shoulder. The Jedi does not say anything but he stands by Yusuf, watching the flames as if Yusuf is not weeping like a child beside him. He offers a polished durasteel water bottle as the flames die down and Yusuf drinks most of it in one thirsty gulp before he can think better of it. When he goes to apologize, the Jedi holds up his hands and shakes his head.

"There is a stream," he says, waving off to their left.

"Thank you," Yusuf holds out the water bottle. The Jedi shakes his head again. "I am Yusuf al-Kaysani."

"Nicolò," the Jedi touches his own chest. "Nicolò di Genoa."

* * *

Nicolò does not know how long they spend together on the planet of their rebirth. The seasons are all but indistinguishable from each other. None of the clocks or time-pieces from the ships last more than a few weeks in the stark conditions. They have supplies, three streams to find water and each other. They try for those first few weeks to resurrect one of the ships but fail. Nicolò is a poor engineer and the Mandalorian parts cannot be integrated with the Republic's technology.

There is a metaphor there, he thinks bitterly.

They are not easy with each other during those weeks. They do not know each other except as enemies and their trust is a fragile thing. Nicolò sleeps with his 'sabre in his hand and knows that Yusuf sleeps with both his blaster and his vibroblade in his hands. It is utterly pointless. They each die a handful of times though accident or clumsiness and wake again within minutes.

They do not kill each other again. It comes close once or twice but they are neither of them fools. Nicolò meditates frequently but the Force is beyond the understanding of a single mind.

"I dreamed of you," he tells Yusuf once, during a sandstorm strong enough to strip flesh from bone. They are huddled in the wreckage of one of the ships. He is not lying but it is not the whole truth either. He recognizes the angle of Yusuf's jaw and the pattern of his curls. It is only when Yusuf is so close that Nicolò recognizes what his subconscious already knows.

"I dreamed of you," Yusuf says. "Good dreams."

Nicolò blushes red and Yusuf's laughter makes his cheeks burn. The Mandalorian's smile makes him ache. Yusuf smiles like a smuggler, Nicolò thinks, but he has known many smugglers and none of them made him feel like Yusuf does.

"Your Jedi would disagree," Yusuf adds. "You think desire is sin, yes?"

"No," Nicolò snaps. "Desire is born of love and admiration."

"Desire is born of _desire_!" Yusuf proclaims. "The urge to fuck, to find your pleasure in your partner's flesh and taste their sweat on your tongue!"

The images that flood Nicolò's mind cannot come from his own memories. They're too sharp for idle imaginings. Nicolò's never had a beard to rasp against his lover's skin. He's never had a lover either. He bundles his robes around himself and refuses to answer. Yusuf, Force damn his wicked eyes and sinful smile, takes this as an invitation to talk about his previous lovers.

The space they are sharing was once a cabin for a single traveller, the bunk askew from its place and the air is hot and heavy with their breathing. Nicolò presses his hands together and strains to find serenity in the Force as Yusuf talks of a night spent with twin Twi'lek sisters in a seedy cantina. Nicolò recognizes the location and his traitorous mind does the rest.

His skill at visualization won him praise in the Temple. It is a torment to him now. His blood runs hotter than the whole wretched planet and Nicolò is inexperienced but he is not naive. He knows his own arousal from the dry lessons of his apprenticeship but always before, Nicolò could redirect his energies to better places. The Force slips through his fingers like the stupid sand that drifts into every fold of his clothes to itch and vexate him.

Yusuf, praise the Force and Its mercy, runs out of stories. Nicolò thinks he might have fallen asleep. He hopes the other man is asleep. 

"They tell stories of your Jedi," Yusuf says suddenly and Nicolò wants to cry at the unfairness of it all. He opens an eye long enough to see the salacious gleam of his companion's smile and considers feigning sleep. "I heard many of them. They say your Master is all things to you during your apprenticeship."

Nicolò almost misses the faint pause before 'all' and the implication takes a second to sink in. His mind helpfully supplies an image of Master Distruk and Nicolò nearly chokes on his own tongue.

"Oh ho!" Yusuf laughs. "I confess, I had not thought there was any truth to such tales before."

"Lies," Nicolò rasps. 

"You are red as a _kayessa_ -fruit!" Yusuf crows. 

"Because it is too hot in here," Nicolò tries to defend himself.

"I saw you in my dreams," Yusuf muses. "Others were barely shadows. Did I see your Master instruct you in the ways of love, Nicolò?"

"No!"

"Such passion," Yusuf mocks. Or teases, maybe? It is hard to tell with him. His Presence in the Force is a kaleidoscope of colour and emotion at the best of times. Nicolò tries his hardest not to take liberties but it feels like trying to look away from the light of the sun sometimes. "Did you not desire your Master?"

"No," Nicolò's mood sours at the thought of his Master. "I loved her...she was like a mother to me."

"Was?" Yusuf asks delicately.

Nicolò inhales, eyes closed tight against the sting of tears. "She died. In the War."

"Ah." Yusuf is silent for a moment. "I am sorry."

"She wasn't even fighting," Nicolò manages. "She was sent to evacuate the Temple on Ecce. The Agri-corps students."

"I don't know that planet," Yusuf says.

Nicolò shrugs. "It was early in the War. Your people did not understand..."

"We understood you Jedi were dangerous," Yusuf says.

"I don't think they knew she was a Jedi," Nicolò says. "There are not many Wookies in the Order. They hear the Force but it's rare for them to be Sensitive to it as a Jedi must be."

"She was a Wookie?" Yusuf asks, then shakes his head. "She was, of course."

"Your people thought she was an animal," Nicolò says. "That's what the students said when they told the Council. She never even drew her 'sabre."

Yusuf is silent for several long moments which is for the best. Nicolò thinks sometimes that he feels Master Distruk in the Force and he has woken with the feeling of her paw on his shoulder. He still reaches for her through the Force before he remembers that she is not there. He tells Yusuf that.

"I don't feel any of them in the Force," he says into the too-hot air. "Not the way that I used to. Whatever happened to us here...I was changed."

"You don't think it was your Force?" Yusuf asks carefully.

"I know it was," Nicolò seizes on the change of subject. "Knowing that it was the Force's Will is not the same thing as understanding why the Force chose this."

Yusuf hums doubtfully. Nicolò shifts to look at him.

"The Force is..." he fumbles for words. "Infinite. We can sense It but It is beyond our understanding. We cannot even imagine what we cannot imagine about it."

Yusuf resettles himself. "It all seems like mysticism to me."

They argue back and forth about the nature of the Force and faith in general. Yusuf is curious but it is always hard to put the experience of touching the Force into words and Nicolò does not try to convince him. He has the sense that there will be time to come to an understanding. There is a connection between them. He thinks that Yusuf feels it too but their truce is still delicate enough that he doesn't want to press.

Yusuf's argument about the finer points of Jedi dogma is broken by a huge yawn. He looks like a disgruntled youngling and Nicolò laughs before his own yawn cuts him off.

"The storm is still going," Yusuf says.

"We should try to get some sleep," Nicolò agrees. "You can have the bunk."

"You cannot sleep on the floor!" Yusuf sounds outraged.

"I have slept on worse," Nicolò argues.

"There is room for us both!" Yusuf argues right back. "And the night will be cold."

"It will be fine," Nicolò waves a hand but Yusuf rolls onto his side to frown down at him.

"Come up here," his hands are large, Nicolò notices. Warm, too. He's only a little taller than Nicolò but stronger in the upper body. Nicolò can't wriggle free of his determined grip. There's barely space enough for them both and they end up pressed together from knee to shoulder. Yusuf's arms fit snugly around Nicolò's leaner shoulders and his triumphant sound is mostly lost in the tingle of his breath against Nicolò's neck.

Nicolò's last waking thought is that he will never be able to sleep like this.

His dreams are a jumble of images but not of Yusuf. He dreams of two women, paired as sweetly as a kyber crystal to hilt and twice as deadly. He feels their combined Presence sing like a spring day and wakes to see his wonder reflected in Yusuf's eyes.

* * *

Time has lost almost all meaning and Yusuf cannot mourn the loss. He sits in the shelter of what was once a fighter's left wing and stitches the rent in his tunic. Most of his attention is on Nicolò who is practicing his lightsabre kata. Yusuf has enjoyed watching Nicolò set aside more of his clothing during his daily practices. It is practical; clothing is too precious to wear out on simple practice.

Yusuf has been rewarded for biting his tongue when Nicolò had started to shed layers for his practice. 

It is the best kind of tantalizing; Nicolò is mostly indifferent to nudity but he is keenly attuned to Yusuf. Yusuf has challenged him on Jedi mind-reading and Nicolò had flushed a beautiful crimson, tripping over his tongue to explain. The 'mind-reading' is really more about emotions and intent. Yusuf wonders idly just how much of his intent Nicolò can read but the Jedi (former Jedi?) is beautiful when he is flustered. Yusuf was composing poetry when they were still mortal enemies, he has exhausted four languages and thirty poetic forms since then.

Nicolò spins effortlessly through the air, the lightsabre illuminating his slick skin and Yusuf thinks of how much he wants to lick the sweat from Nicolò's neck. Nicolò lands heavily, staggering a step and turns to stare at Yusuf. 

_Oh,_ Yusuf thinks. _Oops?_

"You-!" Nicolò sweeps his hair back from his pink face. "You are doing that on purpose!"

"I am doing nothing," Yusuf argues, biting his lip to hide his smile when Nicolò makes an inarticulate protest.

"You are!" Nicolò comes storming back across the sand. "You-! With the-the _thinking_!!"

"I think many things," Yusuf is just baiting him now but it is so rare that he can work Nicolò into a lather. 

"You-you-!" Nicolò waves his hands in the air. "The-with-the _licking_!"

"You look very lickable," Yusuf says just to see Nicolò throw his hands in the air again.

"YOU KEEP DOING THIS!" Nicolò wails. "Why? Why do you keep doing this?"

"Well," Yusuf says before he can second-guess himself. "Among most civilized species, an expression of interest is-"

Nicolò's mouth cuts him off. The kiss is clumsy and Nicolò's momentum carries them down to the sands. Yusuf kisses him back and their first time is clumsier than a raw recruit's first encounter. Nicolò's climax takes them both by surprise and the confounded look on his face leaves Yusuf giggling against his chest. Nicolò's brows draw down, his breath wet against Yusuf's head and he pulls Yusuf's head so he can kiss him deeply. 

After, when Nicolò drags him to the stream to wash off, Yusuf keeps stealing kisses. Nicolò is adorable when he's rumpled and his lips are bruised from kissing. Yusuf lets his hands roam, learning the feel of Nicolò's skin and coaxing his lover into touching him in turn. Nicolò's body is a delight and he flushes beautifully when Yusuf tells him so.

"No regrets?" Yusuf checks. He does not want to rush this despite or maybe because there is nowhere Nicolò can go if Yusuf pushes his limits too far. What is between them is too important to risk for momentary pleasure.

"I do not know," Nicolò tells him with raw honesty. He does not look away and Yusuf can read his heart in his eyes. "I have been a Jedi all of my life. I do not know who I am if I am not a Jedi. I do not know why this has happened to us."

Yusuf kisses his forehead as Nicolò sighs. He feels Nicolò's hand curl around his hip, the calluses from his sabre catching on Yusuf's softer skin.

"I was sure of my place," Nicolò says softly. "So sure that I knew the Force's will for my life. Then the war happened and then...then there was you."

He leans his forehead into Yusuf's and all Yusuf can see are those eyes, bright as the skies of Mandalore.

"And I learned that there was no serenity, no peace that could compare to what I found in your arms," Nicolò whispers. "I come alive when you touch me and I see the Light as clearly as the sun in daylight when you touch me. My oaths tell me that I should go, we both should go back to our sides of this stupid war but my heart..."

He shakes his head, free hand coming up to cup Yusuf's cheek and Yusuf smiles at him.

"My heart," Yusuf says. "You are the moon and stars by which I find my way. You are the breath in my lungs, the Beskar over my chest and the dawn's light after a life in the darkness. I love you beyond all reason and I would be lost without you."

Nicolò laughs and Yusuf presses forward to taste it. 

They have to wash themselves again twice but Yusuf cannot bring himself to care. That night, he goes to sleep with the stars sparkling overhead and Nicolò as a warm weight in his arms. Yusuf's joy is almost too great and he is slow to sleep, eyes opening every second to see Nicolò sleeping so peacefully. He thinks that he can ask for nothing more and it is that thought that he carries into slumber.

Many days later, Yusuf stands by Nicolò's side with his armour strapped on for the first time in what might have been years. Nicolò is almost completely hidden by the ragged layers of his robes and he rests a hand on the 'sabre still clipped to his belt. They watch the small ship, old and battered, descend through the atmosphere. Yusuf mutters to himself as the landing thrusters fire. The lightning crackles along the hull but the ship does not plummet towards the sands.

Nicolò smiles at him, leaning up to brush his lips against Yusuf's cheek. Yusuf grumbles a little louder just to see his love laugh even as he dons his helmet. The read-outs confirm "Two life-forms."

Nicolò takes his hand and Yusuf squeezes his fingers.

"Come, my love," Nicolò says, starting down the dune and drawing Yusuf with him. "Let us greet our sisters."


End file.
